[adwight]

Well I just saw this movie on CBS, as it was the Sunday night movie.  I actually rather enjoyed this movie, albeit a little cliche with the whole asteroid thing, it was well done and worth seeing.  What do you guys think of it?  The only thing it was missing was more rebuilding and stuff, which would have been better.

[Bobboau]

didn't even know it was on, I don't think I've seen 10 seconds of CBS in the past two years, I so rarely venture in that regon of the dial.

I think asteroid impacts are a potential we should take more seriusly, they are the only natural disaster that can wipe us out, and the only one we can posably stop

[mikhael]

I'm with Bob on that one. Also suggest Michael Flynn's Firestar and its sequels. Damn good reads. I think its Michael Flynn, but I'm too lazy to verify. Firestar, Lodestar, another one I can't remember, and Rogue Star are the titles. Pretty kickass.

[Bobboau]

odds are we would end up with a large hole in our planet before we even knew we were in danger, _right now_ a rock the size of Road Island could impact somewere, and you could be seconds away from dieing in a horable way, there could be a shockwave and pulses of torn earth raceing at you.
we would have no idea, simply becase we arn't looking for it

[Knight Templar]

Rhode Island

The big splash it made was cool. And the fuxored White House. I keep telling everyone, after the disgruntled mountain men and unibombers move out, they should move the House to Colorado.

[Bobboau]

uh, you know something that big would probly kill billions

[Knight Templar]

The unibomber part or the moving of the White House?

[neo_hermes]

the Asteroid the size rhode island is what he's talking about KT

[karajorma]

What's scary is not the big ones (those are plenty scary but an asteroid that size would probably be spotted before impact and give you a chance to run about screaming for a few days before you died.)

What really worries me is small metallic asteroids. The asteroid that caused the Wabar impact was only 10m in size and yet had the power of an atomic weapon. Fortunately it went off in a remote desert area of Arabia so no one barely noticed it. It left a crater 500m by 1km. Imagine what would happen if that hit somewhere inhabited!

Have a look at http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/jwynn/3wabar.html for more info.

[FreeTerran]

oh yeah i love that movie

[Gloriano]

it's not like Armageddon but it's still very good

[pyro-manic]

Bleh. It was all "Oh, god, the entire Eastern Seaboard has been wiped out! It's the end of the world!" But they completely ignored the rest of the world. Basically no mention of Europe or Africa at all.

Oh, and the fact that at the end there was half the Capitol Building still sitting there and being recogniseable as such. Nothing built by humans could take an impact like that. Kinda stupid "Yeah, we're Americans! See - we're invincible!" type thing there.

I dunno - I just don't like the film, to be honest. Oh, and another thing - why did the rover things they landed on the rock with have miniguns on? Surely they wouldn't work in space (no oxygen to react with the propellant)?

[J3Vr6]

Deer Impact was the more realistic of the asteroid movies (ie. Armageddon).  A panel of scientists analyzied the two films for consistency and realism and all agreed that Armageddon was done for the hollywood flair.  Deep Impact had a more realistic impression of damage.

Personally, I liked them both equally.

The sad thing is that, due to budgets, we're only watching about 10% of space for meteors or asteroids or whatever.

[Gloriano]

in both films has one proplem there is no way to stop Asteroid or Comet..and never will be in our life time

[Bobboau]

correction; there is no way to stop a huge asteroid in a small amount of time, if we knew about it two or three years ahead of time, I'm sure we could do something about it

[diamondgeezer]

What the hell's happening to this board?

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Bobboau

we would have no idea, simply becase we arn't looking for it

Actually, we do watch. There are several organizations dedicated to searching the sky for and tracking of celestial objects. I'll have to hit the web to find the names. I know there's at least two based in North America.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by Holy Imperial Gloriano
it's not like Armageddon but it's still very good

I think you meant to say, "It's not like Armageddon THEREFORE it's very good".

Armageddon is one of those g#d@mn "science fiction" movies for people who can't even figure out how to program their VCR. Much like Independence Day and Starship Troopers.

I have no problem with mindless sci-fi romps ("Men in Black", "Aliens", etc). But if you're going to do one, don't even try to pretend that you're doing legitimate science fiction. It's utterly pointless, and only serves to piss off the audience members with half a brain.

[diamondgeezer]

You're gonna compare possibly the greatest sci-fi action film of all time to... Men in Black?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by mikhael


Actually, we do watch. There are several organizations dedicated to searching the sky for and tracking of celestial objects. I'll have to hit the web to find the names. I know there's at least two based in North America.

Low budget, though - I think the 10% figure given is about right.  I remember an interesting programme on the ways to destroy asteroids a while back... IIRc, a nuclear weapon capable of destroying a 'planetkiller' one would have to be phenomenally large - and as dangerous to the earth as the asteroid itself.  And even then it would depend on the asteroid composition.